More seeking donations; shopping habits changing
By Penni Crabtree
STAFF WRITER, Union-Tribune
April 25, 2008
Tonya Posk is haunted by history these days.
Standing in a long line for free groceries at City Heights’ Church of the Nazarene yesterday morning, Posk reflected on her grandparents’ stories of bread lines during the Depression.
“I never thought after working 40 years and paying into Social Security that I’d be in a bread line,” said Posk, 62, who started coming to the church for free groceries in March as a way to stretch her $1,376.72 fixed monthly income, which also supports an unemployed son. “It used to be that $150 worth of food would last nearly the whole month – now it lasts just two weeks.”
For Posk and countless other Americans, rising food prices are transforming shopping habits and forcing changes in lifestyle that many would not have contemplated a year ago.
A Gallup/USA Today Poll last week found that food inflation is a significant worry for Americans, with nearly half saying rising food prices have caused hardship for their households.
Consumer food inflation has been running at a 5.3 percent annual rate in the past three months, and that’s on top of a 5 percent increase in all of 2007, the Labor Department said this month.
Big grocery bill
Here’s the average price increase for some common food items over the past 12 months in cities across the United States:
Rice: 9.8 percent
Beef roast: 3.1 percent
Eggs: 29.9 percent
Milk: 13.3 percent
White bread:16.3 percent
Whole chicken: 5.5 percent
Bananas: 14.9 percent
Potatoes: 3.4 percent
Tomatoes: 18.2 percent
Cooking oil:11.7 percent
Peanut butter: 10.9 percent.
SOURCE: Bureau of Labor Statistics
Nationally, the average price for rice is almost 10 percent higher than a year ago, while a loaf of white bread is up 16.3 percent. Eggs are up almost 30 percent, milk 13.3 percent and tomatoes more than 18 percent.
Experts attribute food inflation, the highest in two decades, to a perfect storm of ugly circumstances: A sluggish economy. Record crude oil and gas prices. A robust demand for biofuels and a subsequent decline in corn inventories. Drought-reduced harvests. Commodities speculators. And the rising demand for food supplies in developing countries such as China and India.
In San Diego County, food price worries are exacerbated by some of the highest prices for gas and diesel in the nation, and a meltdown in the housing market that has ratcheted up rental rates and tipped some mortgage-burdened homeowners into foreclosure.
From the bottom up, everyone is feeling the pain. San Diego food banks and their clients – the hundreds of churches, pantries and other relief programs that work directly with poor families across the county – report a sharp rise since January in those seeking food assistance.
Sandy Maynes, executive director of the San Diego Coalition for the Homeless, which co-sponsors the three-times-weekly Church of the Nazarene grocery distribution, called the recent demand “amazing.”
For all of 2007, the church distributed free groceries to 7,582 people; so far this year, 5,771 people have received food. Last April, 1,219 people sought groceries; in just the first two weeks of this month, 1,398 people received food.
Maynes said the chronic homeless constitute only a tiny percentage of those in line.
“A lot of these people have two or three jobs, or recently lost a job, and we are hearing from more and more people who have been foreclosed on and, while they have savings, they are not far from being on the street,” Maynes said. “And it is simply because everything, from gas to food, costs so much.”
The San Diego Food Bank, which distributes millions of pounds of food it collects from donors and corporations each year, said its food relief program to help seniors who qualify under federal low-income guidelines is up 5.2 percent since January.
And the amount of food distributed through the larger, emergency food assistance program, which supplies groceries to soup kitchens and food pantries that in turn dole them out to people regardless of income, is up 50.4 percent since January.
“If only one of our programs went up, I'd say its seasonal variation, or maybe one segment of the population is being affected,” said Jim Jackson, executive director of the San Diego Food Bank. “But when all the program trends are going in the same direction, you begin to wonder what is going on.”
Some area grocery stores report stark changes in shopping patterns and rising frustration. Janet Little, a spokeswoman for Henry's Farmers Market, which has 28 stores in Southern California, said people are buying sale items and passing up “indulgence” products like cake and wine.
Shoppers are also purchasing cheaper meats, more vegetables and buying bulk grains and beans instead of prepackaged, flavored rice or bean mixes.
“Now they are buying beans out of the bulk bin at 39 cents a pound, but so many people don't know how to cook them, so we are trying to give people recipes,” Little said.
Little predicts that shopper frustration will mount as grocery store contracts with food suppliers come up for renewal and more cost is handed down the supply chain to the consumer.
“This is sort of the tip; the whole chain of supply hasn't really gotten down to the consumer yet,” Little said. “Once these year or two-year contracts run out and have to be renewed, we'll start seeing the prices increase even more.
“People are mad now,” Little said. “Who knows where it is going to go in the fall.”
In traditional grocery stores and discount food shops, consumers from all walks of life expressed anger this week with the rising price of food.
At the Albertsons in Mission Hills, shopper Greg Allen, 43, fumed at a $150 grocery bill that he estimates would have cost him closer to $100 last year.
“I used to just pick up the brand I wanted. Now I look for the 2-for-1 stuff and whatever is the cheapest bread,” said Allen, who supports four children on his $70,000-a-year income. “And last month I started shopping for gas online at cheapgas.com, and I'll drive 10 miles to get cheaper gas.
“I went online the other day to see when my economic stimulus money is coming,” Allen said. “I thought it would go to my Etrade account, but forget it. It's going to groceries and gas.”
Normal Heights resident Emilia Alvardo said she knows that all parents look forward to the time when their toddlers get potty trained, but she feels guilty about wanting to hasten the event.
With a weekly income of $300 – and gas to commute to her job as a teacher's aide gobbling up one-third of that – a $10 package of disposable diapers for 2½-year-old Itzel gives potty training unexpected poignancy.
“Things have become very hard – the milk, it's almost $5 a gallon, and I have four children,” said Alvardo, 40, who shopped this week with Itzel at Wal-Mart and the Dollar Tree store off Aero Drive to try to stretch the family budget. “I used to buy Huggies, but they cost $20. Now I buy the off-brand diapers for $10. I'm really trying to potty train her now, but she needs these.
“I used to buy nice little things for the kids,” Alvardo added with a sigh. “But we have cut out all that isn't really necessary.”
Staff writer Jeff McDonald contributed to this report.
Penni Crabtree: (619) 293-1237; penni.crabtree@uniontrib.com
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Food bank distribution by the numbers
